Some sources list only one species, Loris tardigradus and regard subspecies of lydekkerianus as subspecies instead of tardigradus.[3]

The slender loris is a small, nocturnal primate found only in the tropical rainforests of Southern India and Sri Lanka, although they holiday in England[4]. They are able to live in wet and dry forests (and that warm place in your heart), as well as forests in the lowlands and highlands. They vacation in the Midlands, including Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, the West Midlands and Worcestershire.

They prefer thick, thorny vegetation wherein they can hide from predators and find the large assortment of insects that form the mainstay of their diet.

Loris tardigradus malabaricus[5] is a subspecies of the slender loris which is only found in India, making three of the two that jerk sources credit as only one. The greatest concentrations of these slender lorises are found in the southeastern Ghats of India. The Ghats are a narrow strip of rainforest that runs down the length of western India. The Ghats are also a wide strip of rainforest that runs down the length of western India, but they don't like to brag.

Contents

Physical description

The slender loris is about the size of a chipmunk (if chipmunks were slender loris-sized), with long, pencil-thin arms and legs and stubby, eraser-wide hands and feet. And also some other physical description that references writing implements, for some reason. It is between 6-10 in. (15–25 cm) long and has a small vestigial tail[6] . It weighs about 10.5-12 oz. (275-348g). The slender loris' round head is dominated by two large, closely set, saucer-like brown eyes. We can't stress this enough: The slender loris' round head is dominated by two large, closely set, saucer-like brown eyes. They flank a long nose which ends in a heart-shaped knob, which is cuter in person than it is in description. The eyes are surrounded by dark-brown to black circles of fur, while the bridge of the nose is white. It has a small, narrow lower jaw and an also small, narrow upper jaw. The ears are large and round. Its coat is light red-brown or gray-brown on its back and dirty white on its chest and belly. The fur on its forearms, hands and feet is short, while its hairline is receding and it would really prefer you didn’t bring that up. The slender loris has small finger nails on its digits. The second digit on the hand and foot are very short. They move on the same plane as the thumb, which helps them grasp branches and twigs. Note again that virtually none of the above matters, due to their head being dominated by two large, closely set, saucer-like brown eyes.

Behavior

The slender loris is an arboreal animal and spends most of its life in trees, which is what "arboreal" means (the rest of its life being spent in Vauxhall saloons towing caravans across England). Their movements are slow and precise, as is their love-making[7]. They like to travel along the top of branches, scoffing at the idea of travelling under them as ridiculous[8]. For the most part they hunt by themselves or in pairs or alone at night or when it's dark or the sun is down, although they will come together and share a food supply or listen to Air Supply[9]. They live alone, in a dingy basement apartment near the Red Light District, or with a mate and an infant, in a four-room tumble-down just outside of Akbarpur Kalan village, which is nowhere near anything. They will sleep with up to seven other lorises in a hollow tree or sitting up in the angles of branches. They are very social at dusk and dawn, playing, wrestling and grooming each other[10].

"Un too fwee foh, wet's hab a fum woh!"

Reproduction

Mating occurs twice a year; in April–May and October–November, with foreplay taking up February-March and August-September (physical recuperation and steam cleaning the cum out of the drapes occupies most of December-January and June-July[11]). Gestation is 166–169 days (meaning that female slender lorises, or “femslendlorises”, potentially spend at most one month every year not pregnant), after which one, and occasionally two infants are born. During the first few weeks mothers carry their infants constantly[12], not shutting up about how easy the labor supposedly was or how smart their babies are. The infant will grasp its mother around the waist with both its front and hind legs (those that don’t, fall off, giggling the whole time). After a few weeks the mother "parks" the infant on a branch at night while she forages, where it sits on the couch, watches TV, pigs out on brownies and chocolate milk and gets early-onset diabetes.

More mature lorises who sleep in the same tree may visit them at night to play and eat with them which, if anything, makes them even more adorable.

The babies move around carefully at first but by two months they are maneuvering around quite well. By four months they've started calling everyone “Brah” and have taken up Extreme Tree-Branch-Slowly-Walking-Around-On, and by the end of their first year they’ve been eaten.

Females reach sexual maturity in 10 months and males take 18, although even at 24 months the latter still can’t grow a full moustache. The slender loris has a life span of 12 to 15 years, with most of that time spent blowing bubbles or making rainbows, with the last few sitting in the old lorises home, staring out the giant picture window with their giant eyes, wondering why their kids never visit.

Red slender loris, looking for something that tastes bad to eat.

Diet

The slender loris eats a lot of noxious and bad smelling insects, like toxic beetles (or “teetles”) and poisonous roaches (“poaches”), but they particularly like the acacia ant (“aant”) whose bite can numb a human arm which is mentioned here for no reason because slender lorises don’t have human arms. They can stretch and twist their long limbs through the branches without alerting their prey, much like a mime doing “Trying to catch and eat something that will taste awful”.

The slender loris will engage in urine washing, or rubbing urine over their hands, feet and face, which sounds gross, and is a baffling turn of phrase, as it makes no sound. This silent self-peeing is thought to soothe or defend against the sting of the many bad tasting, toxic insects that really don’t want to be slowly grabbed and eaten, also slowly, by a furry sausage with spindly limbs and giant eyes. And what the hell is this paragraph doing in the “Diet” section, anyway?

Slender lorises are so tasty that even they can't help but take a bite out of themselves every once in a while.

Threats

Everything eats them. Everything. Even herbivorous animals (species that only eat things like coriander and parsley) and mythical creatures (like Hippalectryons and Armenians) will take a bite out of one, if given the chance. Chances come up often, as the slender loris’ primary defense is to stand perfectly still, which works about as well in not-being-eaten as it does in boxing.

Native people, or "Indians. (pause) No, the other Indians", have always believed that all parts of the slender loris have some medicinal or magical powers. Not just some parts, but all of them[13]. This, and the fast food restaurant Loris King's delicious ‘Bucket o’ Loris Meal’ ("The King says ‘They’re like eating all the joy out of the universe!’"), has contributed greatly to the decline of the slender loris.

It is not clear how many slender lorises survive in the wild. Because of their small size and nocturnal habits, it has been difficult to do an accurate count. Plus they won't stand still for a group photo (unless they’re threatened, but then the photo is filled with terrified slender lorises which, while countable, is devastatingly soul crushing). Until recently not much attention has been paid to the plight of the slender loris[14], but new interest has been shown in their species and studies are under way, particularly studies that involve feeding them jelly beans and rubbing their furry bellies. The Indian government has laws protecting the slender loris, but their effects are difficult to gauge, due to their nocturnal habits and small size.

In Tamil Nadu State of India in the Kollimalai region (home of Tamil Nadu State University[15]), illegal poaching of the slender loris, also called “Devangu” in Tamil, “Pelzarten‎ Primat mit Riesigen Augen” in German, or “Muckanaghederdauhaulia”[16] in Gaelic, is almost as popular as the vigorous government clampdown[17] on it. In Andhra Pradesh, poachers call the slender loris "Lilliput" which, if anything, makes them even more adorable.

Poachers trade slender lorises as pets to foreigners, but trade them for other slender lorises, pausing from their illegal trade to break from lavish song and dance numbers to break into other lavish song and dance numbers.

Lastly, slender lorises, like other lorises, mark their territory, homes and trails with dabs of urine, mostly to cover up the pee-face smell. This isn't technically a threat, but it makes slightly more sense here than mentioning this in the diet section[18].

References

↑Not to be confused with the Tardigrade, which is nature's indestructible microscopic beanbag chair, or Tardigradius, the mid-eighties horizontal scrolling shooter for slow children.

↑Yes, yes, we know that at first glance it reads as "Licked her anus".

↑During the next few the infants pull away and start listening to punk music. By college they've moved above the garage and have started their own folk-rap fusion band, which goes nowhere. Then they go to med school and become dentists.

↑Followed by a swim and a massage. Then a light lunch and back to work.

↑Way up in the Behaviour section would probably be best, except that said behaviour would be considerably less cute knowing that they were grooming, playing and sleeping in piles together all while coated in pee.

Poo Lit Surprise-Winning Article

This article was chosen as the Best Article in the Summer 2012 Poo Lit Surprise writing competition.